Washington Finally Takes AI Seriously

One of America’s top defense and foreign policy think tanks has announced the creation of a Task Force on Artificial Intelligence and National Security to look into AI’s impact both in the U.S. and around the world.

The Center for New American Security (CNAS) has developed the task force as part of its multi-year Artificial Intelligence and Global Security Initiative.

“The CNAS Task Force on Artificial Intelligence and National Security brings together national security leaders and AI experts to tackle the challenges posed by the AI revolution,” the agency wrote in a statement. “Composed of former senior government officials, private industry leaders and academic experts, the Task Force examines how the United States should respond to the national security challenges posed by artificial intelligence.”

The Initiative was developed to study the issues surrounding what it calls the “AI revolution.”

“Current AI technology is powerful, but also has a number of vulnerabilities, including susceptibility to spoofing (false data) and control problems,” CNAS wrote. “An arms race in AI where nations and other actors rush to use this technology for their advantage without any concern for safety would be harmful to everyone.”

According to news from TechCrunch, the task force will be co-led by Andrew Moore, dean of Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science, and Robert O. Work, who was deputy defense secretary from 2014–2017, as well as former CEO of CNAS.

Members are made up of other notable names in national security and D.C. policy, including Terah Lyons, the executive director of the Partnership on AI, and Shivon Zilis, a partner at Bloomberg Beta, as well as a project director at OpenAI, Tesla and Neuralink.

Specifically, the task force is looking into AI when it comes to: changing power dynamics among actors in the international arena; altering the character of conflict; crisis stability, including areas of conflict and arms races; security dimensions of AI and ways to meet international cooperation.

“It is vitally important for the technology and policy communities to come together to better understand the implications of the AI revolution for global security and how best to navigate the challenges ahead,” stated CNAS.